Main Line Chew family maintains their ties to Cliveden House

By David Schmidt
Special to Main Line Life

For most of us, imagining what it was like to live in
a colonial mansion is a part of the dream that takes
us to historic sites. But for a family of Main Line
residents, it brings back memories of Christmas and
Thanksgiving: "I remember coming here to Cliveden
as a youngster for holidays, such as Thanksgiving,"
says John Chew, a St. David's resident who is a seventh-generation
descendant of the original Benjamin Chew. This Chew
served as William Penn's colonial lawyer. At the time
of John's visits, the house was owned and occupied
by his Great Aunt Bessie, who presided over the family
until her death at 95 in 1959. At that time John's
uncle, Samuel Chew III, moved in.

Most of the Chew family had already moved to Radnor
several generations earlier to their estate, Vanor.
This property had come into the family through marriage
when Mary Johnson Brown, wife of Samuel Chew (1832-1887),
and her sister Martha inherited it from their father
David Sands Brown, who died in 1877. The family calls
that Samuel "Centennial Sam" to differentiate
him from other "Sams" in the family. He
earned the nickname by being very involved in America's
Centennial celebration, which was held in Philadelphia.

According to Elizabeth Chew Bennett Betty at that
time Vanor was a very large estate. "It included
practically all of Radnor, and was divided by what's
now Route 30," she says. The farm there provided
milk to Radnor Township, she says of her childhood
home. For several generations there were three Chew
properties: a townhouse in Philadelphia, which had
been the original household. Then came the Chew or
Cliveden House, begun in 1763 as a family summerhouse
in the heights near the village of Germantown, northeast
of Philadelphia. A century later, the Main Line estate
was acquired. Cliveden House is now part of the National
Trust for Historic Preservation; the Philadelphia house
is no longer in the family. And although some of the
family, like Betty, still lives on what was part of
the Radnor property it too is gone. According to Betty,
the Vanor estate was broken up and sold in 1941 for
very practical reasons. "The original house
had 56 rooms and during the war my mother couldn't
get the 80 tons of coal it took a year to heat it,"
she says.

What has remained is the family. There are four generations
still around. Betty represents the fifth generation
removed from Chief Justice Benjamin Chew (1722-1810)
the founder of the Philadelphia branch of the Chews.
The family's American history actually begins in 1622
when John Chew stepped off the ship "Charitie"
in Jamestown, Virginia, accompanied by three servants
from Chewton, Somerset, England. The sixth generation
is represented by John and his 10 siblings and cousins.
The seventh currently has eight members and there is
a lone member of the eighth generation, Taylor Chew,
born last year.

The family history
Two names are associated with much of the history of
the Chew family here -- Benjamin and Sam. There have
been several of each, and many events surround these
men. The original Benjamin came to Philadelphia from
Maryland by way of studying law in London. His fortune
came from his association with the Penn family. Originally
a Quaker, he and his father left the Society of Friends
to become Anglicans. Once free of the simple life,
Benjamin began to purchase elaborate furniture and
affect the upper-class English attitude. He also owned
slaves, a practice more common in Philadelphia than
history usually notes. Although he signed the colonies'
non-importation agreement protesting taxation, he refused
to give up his post as chief justice of colonial Pennsylvania's
Supreme Court, even when revolt was inevitable. He
spent a year of the war under house arrest in New Jersey
because he was considered a loyalist.

After the war Benjamin returned to public life as an
avowed American. Revisionist histories have downplayed
the fact that at the beginning of the revolution public
opinion was, at best, split, with a rather large percentage
of Americans committed to the loyalist cause. Many
chose to emigrate from American at the end of the war.
For a rich and important man to side with the British
was thus less scandalous.

The Battle of Germantown reduced the family's house
there with a severe level of damage, although the structure
was intact. Chew began renovating it, but sold it in
1779 at the ebb of his political fortunes. In 1797
he repurchased the house, having rejoined the elite
of Philadelphia society.

In 1810 Ben Chew Jr, inherited Cliveden and expanded
it to a 66-acre working estate. After his death in
1844 the family fought bitterly over Cliveden's ownership.
The villain of the piece was "Bad Ben,"
the son of Ben Jr. Bad Ben removed and sold many of
the most important family heirlooms. The family heroine
was Bad Ben's sister Anne who saved the family's home
and honor. Her nephew, "Centennial Sam,"
helped in the effort by finding and repurchasing many
of their family treasures. Sam saw the house and its
association with the Battle of Germantown as an important
link between the Chew family and American history.

Sam's passion for history led him in his desire to rewrite
the Loyalist history of the Chew family. After 100
years, it was easy to forget or forgive. Sam emphasized
his family's colonial splendor and the great event
that tied it firmly to the American Revolution. By
emphasizing the historical importance of their home's
structure, he worked tirelessly to recast the family
as colonial aristocrats. His wife Mary Chew was more
interested in preservation efforts beyond the family,
starting the trend today's John continues. She served
on the Centennial Celebration's women's committee.
After her husband's death she was a part of the restoration
of Independence Hall and was enrolled in the newly
formed Colonial Dames.

Women vital to Cliveden
The women of the Chew family played an important part
in the history of Cliveden. In the 1890s Mary rebutted
a Congressman's 1890 attempt to formalize government
stewardship of the Cliveden property that the estate
was to remain a family home. With the exception of
sporadic public events held in the house, it was maintained
as a family residence. Mary passed stewardship to her
daughter Bessie Elizabeth Brown Chew who was a spinster.
It was she who lived in the house until her death in
1959, though ownership formally belonged to her brother,
Samuel II, who bequeathed it to his very young nephew
Samuel III. The house tended to remain in the possession
of the Benjamins and Samuels of the family. But Aunt
Bessie lived in the house for more than the first half
of the 20th Century, and was its caretaker and keeper
of the faith. By the time of Bessie's death, it was
becoming clear that it was difficult to maintain the
house. When Samuel III moved into the house, he made
changes to make the house livable without changing
the nature of the Colonial monument it had become.
He and his family lived there until 1972, when he led
the family in transferring ownership of Cliveden, the
remaining six acres of parkland and the collection
of artifacts to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Why the house went to the nation
"There were a couple of reasons, economic and
the timing, but the overwhelming principle was a sense
of responsibility of doing the right thing. We wanted
to get it to somebody who could take care of it and
open it to the public," John says."In
essence it was a family-wide decision," says
John. The family did not arrive at this desicion lightly.
"It wasn't a casual decision. We are pretty
sure, for instance, that Sam would have discussed the
matter with James Biddle, who was both his friend and
at the time head of the National Trust," says
Sam's sister Betty.

Personal and logistical matters most likely also were
factors for Sam. 1972 was a tragic year for him: "Our
brother Ben died that year, and then shortly afterwards
Sam's wife died. I don't recall if it was the same
year, but Sam's daughter also died at about that time,"
says Betty. John sees other family matters playing
on the decision. "My generation - the kids at
the time - was going away. There were nine of us, and
most were on our way to college and jobs, so we were
increasingly not around," he says. In 1970 there
was a fire in the carriage house, and the original
doors that had withstood American attacks during the
Battle of Germantown were, as well as a coach from
the period were lost. The family's concern for maintaining
the history and heritage of the house and their family,
plus increasing security worries as Germantown urbanized
also had an influence.

More than stone and wood
"One extraordinary thing is that there are more
than 200,000 documented pages of material saved by
the family over the generations. Our family has a genetic
predisposition not to throw anything away," says
John. "So one of the major advantages to the
Cliveden House was that there were records of everything
that had happened over the past 200-odd years included
with the stone and wood of the house," he says.
These archives were given to the Pennsylvania Historical
Society in 1981. "It's a treasure trove of how
life was lived then, says Chris Kepford, executive
director of Cliveden House. "So not only is
this a neat old building, but we have the documentation
of a battle site, and through the National Trust the
house also. We are leading in the preservation efforts
of America's history," Kepford says.

That is an important part of why Cliveden House is now
one of 19 National Historic Trust houses in the United
States. "That is the hook for me being part
of a larger movement for preservation," John
says. Part of the arrangement with the National Trust
was that a member of the family would be on the governing
board. In John's case it has been more than a chore
or obligation, it's become somewhat of a cause. "I
was first involved by my father in 1981 when I joined
him on the board. Currently he is vice chairman, but
also served as chairman. While chairman, he was elected
the chairman of the national group of Historic Site
leaders, and that included sitting on the board of
the National Trust for Historic Preservation for four
years.

That allows him to take a larger view of Cliveden as
being more than a house museum. "It has the
big advantage of being a battle site in the Revolutionary
War and has been a repository for hundreds of years,"
he says.

Betty is still active on behalf of Cliveden, serving
on the advisory council, and acting as the living historian
of the family. Another of Betty's generation, Richard
"Dickey" Berringer has been guiding tours
at Cliveden for 10 years. "I tell them I'm a
Chew, and as a former history teacher, it gives me
something to do," he says. He is the son of Anne
Sophia Penn Chew Berringer.

John's interest goes beyond board meetings and he'll
often be found fussing with the computer system or
helping to ensure the day-to-day tasks of running the
facility go smoothly. He has become a proponent of
historic preservation far beyond the family grounds
of his ancestors. He may never get to spend another
Thanksgiving at the estate, but he's got something
better than that: People come to visit his family's
house and touch their pasts through his. That beats
turkey and stuffing anytime.

Cliveden is a National Trust historic site located at
6401 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, Pa. 19144. Hours
of operation are from noon until 4pm Thursday through
Sunday from April 1 until December 31. For more information
call 215-848-1777.